Suggestions for possible Commission
jmabbott
🖼️ 39 images Mapmaker
Hi All,
I've been offered a chance to provide a quote for a collection of 8 maps for a fantasy supplement based around the 15th Century Hanseatic League. The commission is for a city map, regional map and 6 building floorplans including a temple, pub, ruined manor and warehouse.
Any thoughts out there as to what would be the most appropriate styles?
Comments
I think you should find more out about the product. Is it high fantasy or sword and sorcery? Is it going to be color art? You want the maps to match the tone/art of the book.
As a default I would say Darklands because it has an overland and city style. Although I think spectrum looks better.
I'm waiting on a copy of the brief. Their last couple of products have been full colour, previously they were B&W, I'll wait and see, but you're right Darklands would be a pretty good fit for colour given its Gothic overtones.
Ok, so brief is colour. Maps are to have a renaissance feel. City map has cliffs. An interesting challenge...
Do they really mean renaissance though? There are many of those styles - Renaissance, Isometric Town, John Speed, Panorama, and maybe some others. I just wonder if they just looking for a different building style that says not medieval.
The 2020 annual has a couple of symbol sets for cliffs.
Righto,
So I made a 'sample' folder using the sample maps from the documentation folders; here is the explanatory text from the email;
CA54 Overland, CA51 Dungeon/Floorplan and CA165 City are styles created by Jonathon Roberts, while neither Renaissance or particularly medieval they work well together. The city style is particularly good and is an excellent example of how I intend to do the various cliffs in the city map (I can add the cliffs to most other city styles).
CA71 Overland is a style by Herwin Weilink and has a kind of gothic feel which I think could work for the overland.
CA127 Overland is a style that meets the Renaissance brief, based on maps by Gerardus Mercator.
CA158 City is a style emulating the work of Joseph de Ferraris. Ferraris' is a cartographer from the 17th century, so a bit later than the period we're looking at. Along with the Mercator map, I think they would work well together, though the Ferraris style is very time consuming to get right.
CA173 Overland and CA177 City would be my preference. Whilst not exactly keeping to the brief they have a bit of a gothic feel and are designed to go together.
Finally, we have the SS4 Dungeon/Floorplan & SS5 City styles which are based on artwork by Mike Schley. I would probably use either SS4 or CA51 for doing the floorplan maps. There is also an Overland style by Mike Schley (see the map of the Aegytptian Empire in The Temple of Set adventure for reference) but in my opinion it is the least suitable for the brief, though obviously works well with the city and dungeon styles.
I can also do B&W maps for the floorplans, based on the SS4 style.
And the winners are:
Darklands Overland and City and Jonathon Robert's Dungeons!
Congrats & thanks @Loopysue my maps using your styles will see publication in the second half of the year!
I knew they really didn't mean Renaissance ;)